Alfred Milner

Alfred Milner (23 March 1854-13 May 1925) was a British statesman and colonial administrator who served as Governor of the Cape Colony from 5 May 1897 to 6 March 1901 (succeeding William Howley Goodenough and preceding Walter Francis Hely-Hutchinson), Secretary of State for War from 18 April 1918 to 10 January 1919 (succeeding the Earl of Derby and preceding Winston Churchill), and Secretary of State for the Colonies from 10 January 1919 to 13 February 1921 (succeeding Walter Long and preceding Churchill).

Biography
Alfred Milner was born in Giessen, Grand Duchy of Hesse in 1854, and he was educated at Tubingen, London, and Oxford. He was first a lawyer, then a journalist, and was private secretary to the Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer George Goschen. His growing interest in finance, and his belief in British imperialism, saw him appointed to the Egyptian Finance Ministry from 1889 to 1892. He was then chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue, and at the request of Joseph Chamberlain, he became high commissioner for South Africa in 1897. There, he advocated a hardline policy in order to secure British interests against assertive Afrikaners, if necessary through war. However, he also made plans to reform and reorganize the country, in conjunction with his "Kindergarten" of young imperialists, such as Geoffrey Dawson and Lionel Curtis. He left South Africa in 1905, and was active in the House of Lords. In World War I he helped in the Ministry of War Supply, and beacme a member of the War Cabinet from 1916 to 1918, later Secretary of State for War from 1918 to 1919, and for the Colonies from 1919 to 1921. His strong belief in Britain's imperial mission was a constant feature of his career, yet he was flexible enough to negotiate the basis of the 1922 settlement with Egyptian nationalists. This was not immediately accepted by David Lloyd George, and Milner resigned in 1921.